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Read all five posts first before asking questions. If you are looking for firmware links they are at the bottom of post 5.

Update;
The model with the far better remote they called "II" is apparently being upgraded again with the addition of a rear panel RE ch. 3/4 switch. It's not detailed on their site except for a firmware upgrade warning. See post 5.Thanks to member satpro, the "II" version has had a 'mod' done for the USB port. The power feed now runs directly from the power supply, not from the board. See his post here;http://www.avsforum.com/t/1465875/iview-3500stb-tuner-dvr-owners-thread/3180#post_24725268

Carrying over from the short 'speculation' thread, Rjax44 and myself thought a fresh start would be in order. When I first saw this and the price, I sort of dismissed it. But, upon further reading and some debate, I thought I would give one a try. The price was raised to around $58 from a low of $40, but for a ATSC tuner w/ DVR capability??
(Note; these are also sold under the Homeworx name through Mediasonic. There are many others selling similar versions with different enclosures, most without a display. The basic electronics components are the same which means similar performance. The difference being the firmware and whomever writes it.)

The DVR isn't the only thing that is tiny. The remote and the manual are also. I have been in contact with iView (with far better results and communications than some other encounter ) and was told a revised manual and a firmware update should be available shortly.
Below are photos of the box and contents, rear panel, comparisons of the DVR and a 3 1/2" HDD enclosure, another of this and a a comparison between the original remote and the replacement. BTW, I'm not suggesting that anyone place a HDD enclosure directly on top of the DVR, I just used that for size comparison.
Note, the last photo, the top shield for the tuner was removed for the photo.

The "system processor", or more correctly, the SoC (System on a Chip) is very likely made by MStar, a Taiwanese (not mainland China!) semiconducter manufacturer.
The part number for the SoC might be the MStar 7816, based on this product description.
MStar is a MIPS licensee, so the processor in the SoC is most likely to be MIPS.

Trying to read the text on some of these was a real eye strain. Namely the memory chip with the mark on the surface and the one chip inside the tuner. Neither of which I'm sure about at this time. Take a look below;

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iView has joined the forum;

Quote:

To AVS Users,
We as IVIEW greatly appreciate the time and effort each and everyone one of you have taken to post your feedback both positive and negative. IVIEW has been monitoring and acknowledging your suggestions as we continue to improve our 3500STB. We are dedicated to provide a great product at a reasonable price. In order to improve our product and meet the needs of our consumers we ask for your help by continuing to provide us with your critiques and suggestions on how we can improve the product. The AVS forum has helped us tremendously to improve our product because it has provided us with insight into our product. We have remained silent on the forum because we preferred to listen and take into your suggestions without offering justification. Please do not confuse our silence as IVIEW not caring about our customers. Due to recent allegations made by Mediatronic we feel the need to clarify the allegations made against IVIEW. Our clarifications are for the users and our consumers and in no way are we attacking another company. To clarify IVIEW is a brand of Wiltronic Corporation which is under the parent company of Chengzhi Corporation. As many of you may know we are currently using MSTAR chip which uses general firmware, but our engineers at Chengzhi Corporation contribute to the firmware in order to improve our product. Our product is similar to Mediatronic product, but in no way did we steal, copy, or reproduce their converter boxes. Our converter box became available on the market ahead of Mediatronic’s product. Our firmware is unique and different from theirs because our engineers have created a product with QAM capability. The converter is uniquely ours therefore we are constantly creating new firmware to improve it. With that being said, we are currently testing a new firmware that will eliminate many of the issues our consumers were having, many of these issues were discovered by the users on this forum. We acknowledge our mistakes and are taking every step necessary to correct them. Please disregard the latest firmware that was posted on our website and we apologize for any inconvenience it might have created. Our new firmware will greatly improve the QAM capability, EPG menu, our recording system, and remote control. Your suggestions on our product have greatly influenced our improvements. As a gesture of our appreciation we would like to offer our new remote to any user who helps us improve our product by providing any suggestions. We here at IVIEW stand behind our product and will continue to improve and greatly appreciate any help. Please feel free to contact us for any questions or concerns at support@iviewus.com or by phone 909-627-9888 Monday through Friday 9am-5pm Pacific Time. We really do apologize for the inconvenience and IVIEW is dedicated to provide our customers with the best possible product.

It's interesting and never fails to amaze me on every new model has something all the others don't have and should. Here, the ability to sort the stations in the guide is available. Something the ill fated Sony had and no other including the grossly overrated TiVo that fails with so many basic functions, namely # 2, 3 & 5 (below).

1. Tuners: one ATSC/QAM, NO analog (NTSC) capability,
2. Ability to enter individual channels without doing a complete scan,
3. Ability bypass a initial scan in the Installation setup,
4. Ability to remember both channel tables; OTA & CATV in one list as long as you don't do a scan. You would need to add a A/B switch to access both. (see photo)
5. Allows complete removal of channels, not just skipping them,
6. Lightning fast boot time of 10 seconds. Yes, I said 10 seconds,
7. Fast channel changes, unlike many other DVR's,
8. HDMI, component, coaxial audio, composite & analog audio outputs,
9. Extremal HDD capacity can be as large as 1TB not just 500GB as stated. (thanks to jjeff),
10. Ultra low power consumption of less than 1 watt off, 7 watts on and 11 watts with a 2 1/2" HDD attached to the USB port,
11. You can rename recordings. Unfortunately, all recordings are a overly long cryptic number,
12. Timeshift is adjustable in size, not time from .5GB to 4GB. Timeshifting does not start automatically,
13. Adjustable volume and mute, but not when HDMI is set to 'Raw' audio,
14. Unusual recording info screens showing data transfer rates among other details. Huge plus,
15. This is capable of more than one storage device using a USB hub (thanks to jjeff), though there is only one front panel USB jack,
16. Internal power supply instead of another wall brick,
17. The format utility is fast. It's a quick version and takes around 5 seconds. (I didn't try it with a blank drive, it was formatted to ext2),
18. Recordings off the connected hard drive can be played to a PC and/or transfered there with no issue. The photos section didn't display some .jpg's for some unknown reason. It had no problem with .ts files from DVD's.
19. Choice of RF pass through (loop through) or modulated RF ch 3 or 4 (NTSC) for old school TV sets with no a/v inputs. But, only when powered up,
20. Music files can be played while in the Photo mode. Selections automatically advance no matter how thew pics are being viewed,
21. Use of a "USB stick" is NOT recommended. They were never intended for recording these high bitrates and file sizes. Don't waste your time, get a external HDD case and a 2 1/2" laptop drive.
22. You can't pause recordings to edit out commercials. Pausing a recording while watching does not pause the recording, it causes the system to enter the 'Timeshifting' mode instead. The recording continues. (Thanks to nickle2)

Important information about receiving CATV (Cable TV) channels.. This has nothing to do with receiving TV stations via an antenna (OTA). If that is you, skip this;

First off, NO tuner, TV or DVR will allow viewing any encrypted channel without a CC (Cable Card).
These have problems dealing with certain CATV systems. The problem stems from how each MSO (Multiple System Operator) ID's their 'in the clear' stations (channels). Many CATV systems will show a "virtual" channel number that reflects the OTA (Over The Air) stations former analog channel number. This differs from the actual physical RF channel number the station is actually on. Many do not understand this, as it is confusing thanks to the NAB & FCC (but that is another story).
Example; in my market the NBC affiliates former analog channel was ch. 2. Their ATSC (digital) OTA physical channel is now 33. A TV, tuner, DVR will ID this as 2.1 as intended. On a CATV system that provides virtual numbers, it will (or should) also be ID'ed as 2.1. On systems that DON'T do this, it will be ID'ed as whatever physical major & minor channel they place it on which can be anywhere between RF ch. 2 and the highest RF channel the system is using (around ch. 115-117 for 750MHz systems and up to ch. 170 for newer 1 GHz systems). In my case the NBC affiliate is on ch. 69.1 (AFAIK). This can change if needed which unfortunately does depending on the system. I call this "playing musical (not music) channels".

Now what all of that means is depending on which firmware version you are using, you may or may not receive all of the 'in the clear' stations you should. You may not receive any (assuming you do have non-encrypted stations or you will see a channel list of a couple hundred, 95% which will have to be skipped or deleted. The work around for this, assuming you know the physical CATV channel numbers used by your MSO, is doing a manual channel search. (See the next post). Some systems are all encrypted or will soon will be unfortunately. Again, thanks to the FCC. These devices (no matter what name is on the box since they all use the same basic components) have trouble dealing with all of this. Whomever, whatever company that writes the firmware in China can't properly test any of this since there is no QAM systems there. So a trial and error process has to take place here. Unfortunately, it's been more error.

If you want to change FW versions, see the bottom of post five. The process is fairly easy.

The initial setup gives you the option of skipping the scan process. I prefer to manually enter my physical channel numbers in, so that I don't have to go back and delete 12 or more entries that I don't want. The OTA channel scanning is fast. I did try it and it took 2 1/2 minutes to complete. I assume it depends on the number of active physical channel you can receive.
There isn't many things to change in the menu. The lack of a manual time setting is a problem. When I set the offset to "New York" the time was one hour slow. I had to set the offset to manual and change it to -4 GMT. The tuner is average in reception ability. Not bad, but not the best. What can you ask for for $45. If you are 'on the cliff' with any stations with better tuners, then it may be a problem here.

After you finished your channel entry, there are plenty options to customize the list. Most work, some don't. Yon either hide (or skip) unwanted channels, or delete them all together. But, if they are deleted, they can be added back with no issue. Unlike every other DVR other than the ill fated Sony, channels can be moved anywhere in the list and call letters can be edited, helping with the bogus channel list number by adding the virtual channel number either before or after the call letters. There are four favorites categories, but they all share the same icon in the menu.
Below are screens that show the signal level. The 'Manual search' is nice as it will show in real time the level by just scrolling through the channels. There are 25 'dots' in that bar. 10 are red, 9 are magenta and 6 are cyan (light blue). The same bar is used for volume, but the red & cyan are reversed.;

Manual channel entry;

I always prefer the ability to manually add channels instead of doing a full scan. AFAIC, any tuner that doesn't allow this is worthless. Period! As long as you know the physical channel numbers of your stations, it's no problem. OTA (over the air) is relatively easy, with CATV systems it's another matter. Doing a QAM full scan is very lengthly here. The other problem is this does not skip encrypted channels, so you will have to. After a couple hundred button pushes, you wished didn't do a scan. Here is the better way;

Open up the manual search screen to start entering your channels. With OTA, the following hasn't been a problem. With CATV it is. There is a longer time delay before you can hit the 'Ok" button apparently due to the number of sub channels each physical channel has. If you look at the following two screen shots, the one of the left has no signal "Quality" level shown. The one on the right does. Only when this occurs, can you hit 'Ok'. If you don't wait, you will get no results. Again, this is only with CATV systems due to the number of sub-channles on each carrier..
You can either hit the left or right navigation keys to change channels, or do a direct channel entry which is usually faster.

This can also be used as a signal quality indicator to peak reception of 'on the cliff' stations. Toggling up or down or doing a direct entry (without hitting Ok after the change in channel is made) is all you need to do.

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The Guide only lists one channel at a time in the entire screen. You scroll horizontally forward or back to change stations. There is room for 11 rows of text in the program list portion of the guide. Problem is, that is all you can get as of now. The page up & down do not respond. I don't know if 11 is all the DVR can show, or it's a lack of response from those buttons. The details box to the right does allow scrolling.
There is only two locations where the clock shows. The guide is one and the small info screen is the other.

Below are screen shots of the misnamed "Program Edit" which should be changed to Channel Edit. The orange icon is the "move" symbol allowing repositioning that station anywhere you wish. Can't do that with any other DVR that I know of except the ill fated Sony. Next is the station name edit screen. Notice it deletes what was already showing as soon as you click on the misnamed 'Recall' button on the remote. It allows up to 16 characters. There is no provision for a 'space' to be entered that I can find.

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Below are the System info showing the original version number of the installed firmware from 12/12. The 2nd screen is the Firmware update;

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Under USB/PVR configure in the menu, the status of the attached storage device is shown. Notice the arrows on each side of the 'Disk' line indicating this has the ability to see more than one USB device attached. I don't have a USB hub but member jjeff did and confirmed this can access more than one storage device,. Note this is where the adjustable timeshift amount is changed, up to 4GB.
The 2nd pic is the Recording Schedule showing four consecutive entries. Note no channel numbers or titles of programs show. Not sure why the last entry didn't show the stations call letters.

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Video resolutions & aspect formats;

Under 'Picture', there are five resolution choices; 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i & 1080p. They are available for component & HDMI which should make this suitable for almost any HDTV
Aspect choices are; Auto, 16:9 pillar box, 4:3 letter, 4:3 pan & scan, 4:3 full, 16:9 wide screen. I leave it on 16:9 pillar since it doesn't distort (stretch) the screen.

added details for doing a manual channel add & using the manual search for a signal quality indicator

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Abundant OTA television is what makes this country different from all others. Lets keep it this way. If you like Wi-Fi so much, OTA fits right in. After all, it is wireless.

For far more bang for the buck, pick up a 2 1/2" HDD and a suitable enclosure. For size, heat and power consumption and the lack of, makes that the best bet. Drive sizes of 320GB & 500GB should be more than enough. Then pickup a separate enclosure with a USB port. This will power a 2 1/2" drive, but note the PS does get hot, but it hasn't failed for the time I have used it.

During recording, if you change channels, the recording will pause until you return back to the channel you were recording. Since this only has a single tuner and doesn't allow watching what already has been recorded, this is kinda a nice feature.

Recording features;

There is a neat 'Record Info' box that is available when a recording is in progress. It shows available recording time of the storage device you have connected and it's a easy way to check station bitrates. Though, I don't know how accurate the displayed bitrate is, it is still a method of comparison. Interesting which stations have higher bitrates that others. Also interesting how the change in bitrate changes the total recording capability of your hard drive.
If you look at the upper left corner next to that pop up, your will also see the record indicator showing recording time and a flashing yellow ball.

Timeshifting is available, but it is not always running which is good. If you aren't use it, why have it run, especially on a device as this? You can change the size of the buffer from .5GB to 4GB, not the length of time. The last pic shows the timebar when timeshifting. Oddly, this is the only place this is shown. In playback there is no timebar.
Lastly, there is no Closed Caption recording ability.

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Playback;

Access to recorded material is only through the menu. There is no shortcut on the remote. The USB button, which one would think be the direct access is the button for timeshifting.
The files system is NTFS so no other drivers are needed for playback to a Windows based PC. The recording are not encrypted either. They are all placed in a folder named "HBPVR".
The drive is labeled "123456789". I don't know if changing it to something meaningful would cause problems when connected back to the DVR. Interesting small file "MM_Play_Time.ini" placed in the root and in the folder.
FWIW, that ePVision DVR saw the folder created, but when opened it was empty.

There is no skip function, just multiple fast Fwd & Rew speeds. Nor is there any slow motion. I purposely recorded a 'on the cliff' program where there was considerable breakup. To a point the video almost went black completely. On playback, this recorded and played back with no issue. Unlike some other DVR's, it didn't stop the recording mid stream.

There is direct access to the Multimedia section by using the USB button on the remote. Below are screen shots of the main Media screen, the files within the folder (note the last entry that was renamed), full screen playback with the GoTo and Info showing ability to jump to a specific location & details of the recording. lastly, file deletion confirmation. Note; there is no 'timebar' in playback as you see when you have this setup for timeshifting.
There is a resume feature, but operation is kinda quirky. You have to press stop while in full screen playback to activate the feature. If you hit exit, accidentally or on purpose or are in the preview window, it won't save the location where you left off. Thanks to member jjeff for that one.

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added comments about using USB3 memory sticks and added links for two test sites

Not unlike other media players in these DVR's, this allows playing music when you are viewing photos. Of course, they all have to be on the same drive at the time.

There are two types of 'views' while in the Photo section; list & grid. There is also 59 different types of transitions numbered 1 thru 59 available, most of which are variations of others. You will quickly get bored and distracted by these patterns. I immediately switched to the first choice; "0" which is a simple 'cut', that is not distracting. You also have a choice of time delays between files of 2 through 8 seconds. I found if you use the >I >I or I< I< buttons, you gain full control, making it a manual slide show which I prefer.

Note, both views will show eight files. The grid view takes longer to load since thumbnails have to be generated for each as opposed for just one in list view. One thing that I didn't like is the "Please wait" between each photo when in manual mode. There is no "page" change available with any button. Both shortcomings I will add to the list.

Additional observations and concerns;

I have run numerous recording hours with the 2 1/2" Laptop drive that is still in that VRX recorder, you know, the one that I "carelessly mounted" inside the chassis almost a year ago. The 3500 I placed on top of the VRX for convenience and so I could do this. There is no easy way that a drive could be placed inside safely. It's really just too small of a enclosure.

I also have measured temperatures on the main board and the PS since I'm powering the drive off the PS of the 3500 just as I have been doing with the VRX.
The highest temperature on the main board is 150 degrees with a room temperature of 75 degrees, recording.. But, temperatures of the PS are very high with a drive powered. I'm getting inconsistency of the readings depending on the angle and direction I aim the IR thermometer. Unfortunately, I don't have a 2nd IR thermometer I can measure with to compare.The highest reading has been 215 degrees. That is way too high AFAIC. The obvious solution is a fan, but there is no switched 12v available, so it would run 24/7 since the 5 & 14 volt lines of the PS are always hot. The only way would be to use a thermistor so the fan only runs when it needs to. Anyone chime in on this?

The reason for all of the above is to use this in a small bedroom or kitchen connected to a 26" or less LCD panel, where space is a premium. Add the separate HDD enclosure with the associated outlet mounted PS and it could be a issue. I'm not a fan of USB sticks. They are fine for photos and probably music, but HD recordings, not a chance. Too small in size and too slow for proper throughput.

The entire process takes less than one minute with no user intervention. The firmware will reboot before and after the flash automatically. You remove the drive after the process. iView suggests you reset to factory defaults to complete the process, but What I have discovered is, you can forgo the reset to factory defaults. By not reseting to factory defaults, you retain all settings including the channel map. With current versions of the FW, this does not appear to cause any side effects as it did with earlier versions. (The 2nd pic shows a flash drive with multiple files loaded. You only need to have the one you want to flash loaded.)

Thanks to member Satmann for discovering that you can flash this with the Homeworx firmware version, but you need the Homeworx remote (or a Harmony remote with Homeworx codes) to use the unit since the codes are different;

Quote:

For those of you that have a harmony remote you can turn your iview into a HomeWorx HW-150PVR by using the new homeworx firmware. Before you start the process make sure you update your harmony remote to include the homeworx. I've been using the homeworx firmware in my two iviews since it was released. I can confirm the daily and weakly timers work fine. The guide also works a lot better giving you more than one page of data. The timezone settings seem accurate also. I like the fact that it also turns the bright red display off. Only downside I see is that it disables the front panel buttons which is no big deal just use the remote. I also tried flashing back to the iview firmware and it works fine. When you update your harmony remote homeworx is listed under PVR and the model number HW-150PVR.

Hardware Update;

Thanks to member Gordo7;
There is a new hardware version just released that has a mechanical 'RF' (ch. 3/4) switch on the rear panel and a new chipset. There is a warning on their site not to flash these new boxes with the original firmware. These need to be labeled V III to separate them from V II which only had the remote control upgrade. The photo is not the iView box.

Quote:

READ BEFORE DOWNLOADING: Do NOT download this firmware if your 3500STBII Converter Box has a CH 3/4 switch behind it. You own a converter box that was released in a new batch that has a different chip piece that is not compatible w details on the new hardware version with the RF switch and new component(s).

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Abundant OTA television is what makes this country different from all others. Lets keep it this way. If you like Wi-Fi so much, OTA fits right in. After all, it is wireless.

We should start a wish list for firmware updates. A few things I'd like to see.

1. Full EPG grid. Not just the current channel
2. Have the front display show actual channel you are on not cryptic C001, C002, etc. (My son walked in the room and said, "Why does that thing say COOL on it?"
3. If possible, dimming of front panel display
4. Ability to manually adjust system time
5. Better initial naming of records

We should start a wish list for firmware updates. A few things I'd like to see.

1. Full EPG grid. Not just the current channel

This unit has only one tuner, so that will never happen. A dual-tuner OTA DVR will use its second tuner to scan channels in the background to populate a guide, but a DVR with only one tuner can't do that. Even if there was a guide screen capable of showing multiple channels, you'd have to manually use the channel up key to scan through each channel one by one and linger on each channel until you had time to receive the full guide data from it, as some networks won't send the full guide data more than once every 30+ seconds. Having only one tuner severely limits this unit's usefulness, but if it would let you watch old recordings while making a new one, it would still be handy for people who need a third tuner or rarely need two.

The tuner performance is "average" for what - the latest generation or across all generations?

Aren't you asking an either-or question?

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

Correct. Far better than the Sony, not quite as good as the VRX or the series 3 TiVo's.

'Correct', IMHO, is a strange answer to the question Rammitinski asked.

But what did you test for your conclusion?

I ask because while I know nothing about the VRX, when checking images received, signal strengths, and number of stations received using a Terk HDTVa indoor antenna approx. 60 miles from the most distant transmitting location, I find the Sony DHG and TiVo S3 perform similiarly.

They both receive 9 stations. Signal strengths of viewable stations are similiar.

TiVo's OTA capable 2 tuner Premiere, using the same Terk antenna, performs worse than either an S3 or Sony DHG, receiving only 8 stations with more break-ups and lower signal strengths on all but the strongest stations.

'Correct', IMHO, is a strange answer to the question Rammitinski asked.

Yes you are right. I missed the "or" part. Reply corrected.

Out of five different tuners all receiving the same signal (within 1-2 db of one another), the 2007 Mits DLP TV and the 2005 Sony were the worst. Along with that older 2006 (?) tuner from ePVision that I sold. The VRX is a slight step ahead of the 2008 Samsung LCD set in our bedroom.
What surprised me the most are the "HD" version of the Series 3's. They are almost on par with the VRX and those are a 2007 design.

As I have stated before, I have a very difficult reception situation. Three high powered TV xmitters 7 miles out with numerous weak signals from 55 miles in thje same direction. Coupled to the fact I have three single channel traps to 'tame' those locals with a low to medium gain DA downstream. Now, add three more stations on the back side of the antenna (the original CM 4228A) 20 or so miles out (signal level fine, but multipath not so), I have one of the worst situations other then living next to an antenna farm.
When conditions change, I can see the change on the worst tuner first, as it gets worse it affects the next 'level' (if you will). Not just signal level, but multipath and who knows what else.

That VRX and now those HD TiVo's (huge surprise) will ID stations that can not be viewed (signal there, but not clean enough to be displayed) where no other tuner could. Yes, every situation is a little different.

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Abundant OTA television is what makes this country different from all others. Lets keep it this way. If you like Wi-Fi so much, OTA fits right in. After all, it is wireless.

videobruce has incorporated most of my issues in his OP, my post is kind of a snapshot in time.......my updates will be in bold and are the only things in bold.Blue updates were done on 11-22-13

OK I've been playing with my iView all day, some impressions to add to Videobruce's nice write up, I will somewhat compare it to my Tivo HD but of course they are two totally different classes(and prices).

NO! . key. Yes thats right, no . key so to get to 23.4 you have to enter 23 and after a few seconds it will go to 23.1 after witch you can use the up channel to get to 23.4. An alternate way would be to push OK and arrow down to 23.4 or just use channel up or down. I also don't like the cheap feel and small hard to read buttons of the remote but I guess we couldn't expect much more for the price. Oh I can easily see the white lettering getting worn off the tiny buttons in which case you won't know what they do.....A Harmony or such may be your safest bet. The remote must also be pointed exactly at the unit, no just aiming it near the unit. this is quite a pain, again remote must be pointed almost exactly at the iView for it to read, the remote basically sucks!iView came out with a new remote, it includes the . key and is much better than the original remote, not as nice as I believe the Tivo "peanut remote" is but much better than original.

The guide is somewhat buggy. By that I mean until it gets FULLY populated(takes a minute or so tuned to that channel) trying to navigate in the EPG mode can cause temporary lockups and delays. Also you don't want to use the LEFT RIGHT arrow keys when in EPG mode, it acts weird and keeps some but not all of the info from the previous channel. It's best to actually tune to the channel you want to see, wait a minute or so and then push the EPG button. I rarely use the guide because of it's quirks, other PSIP devices in my house have no such problems.I believe many of the original guide quirks were taken care of with firmware updates but because I also have a Tivo HD I rarely if ever use the guide on my iView.

MILITARY time! People just don't get us Americans, very few people know or like to use military(24hr) time, with this unit you just have to get used to it. still a pain but it is what it is.

As all others have said, weird channel number display on the unit, not the actual channel number but rather the placement of that channel in your lineup, that is channel 2.1 would be C0001, channel 2.2 would be C0002, etc. I'd cover the whole display but it is handy to tell you when you are in the various menus so for the most part I just ignore it(and yes it's glaring bright red!).I've located my iView where I can hardly see it, I never really look at it's useless display, I only occasionally notice my USB HDD light blinking blue as it records.

No native output, only 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i(which is what I used) and 1080p. 480i and 720p channels do have a bit of visible interlace lines due to I believe a sub standard down/upconverter in this tiny unit. Note I see the same thing with my Tivo HD set to FIXED resolution but no problems when set to native or with my TVs built in tuner. I mainly watch 1080i channels which is why I decided on 1080i.

Until you are done playing with this unit(or forever if you have a spare input) I'd suggest running a composite cable as well as HDMI to your TV. Occasionally it won't synch with my Sony TV's HDMI and I need to power cycle the iView or change it's HDMI resolution to something different(which is hard to when you can't see the menus, no matter what the resolution is set to composite is always 480i). Also don't make the mistake of changing the unit to PAL if your TV isn't 50hz compatible, if you do without composite you won't be able to see to change it back. Composite just shows B&W with a non PAL TV. From my initial testings I haven't had such issues, probably OK to just use HDMI once done playing with the unit.I've been using component(mainly due to lack of enough HDMI inputs on my TV) and it's been working great.

No way to tell channels native resolution unless recording it, and of course pushing display on your TV does no good since the iView has a fixed resolution output. I don't like this but again it is what it is.

This is a BAD design, NO RF passthrough when OFF It must be amplified and only works when ON, when it's off it's severely attenuated and only my very strongest station came through when the iView was off. When on and set to modulated RF it looked quite awful on my 52" LCD, composite was a bit better but not really watchable on a HDTV, maybe on a tube TV it would be OK. I would suggest not using pass through, who wants to leave the iView on all the time just to get the pass thru to work, better to use a splitter before the iView.

Volume control is kind of odd. Normally on such devices MAX would be used and then you'd use your TVs volume. With this set to MAX(32) it's overly loud on the TV, a normal line output is 16(half way) on the iView, if you plan on using your TVs volume control set the iView to 16 and it should be equal to all your other line output devices. I've just left it at 16 and all is OK(I use my TVs volume control and not the iView.16 on playback is a bit low so I need to set it to 32(max) to be the same as my other TV inputs but 32 is too loud for simply watching the tuner, unit defaults to 16 after turning it off. Volume thing is kind of a PIA, wish I could just leave it on 16 but again 16 is too low for playback of recorded programs!

No slow mo, you can visually search at 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x and 32x(front or back all with no sound) but no way to slow things down, except PAUSE.IMO searching is kind of a PIA, to search through commercials I need to hit the search button 5 times! to get into a reasonable speed, then once program starts I hit rev search(since I've overshot) 3 or 4 times, then play. Compare this to my Tivo where I only need push FF 3 times, then play(tivo has a autocorrect feature where it backs up a bit after searching and takes me to the exact beginning of the program). I wish iView would just get rid of the 4x and 8x search speeds(similar to tivo) as the iView is it takes just too many button pushes to accomplish skipping commercials.

Resume feature for each title you have been playing which is nice.

500 GB is the largest HDD you can use, according to the manual. My externally powered 1TB USB HDD also seems to work but I haven't filled it past 500GB by any means.I'm now running with a inexpensive 1TB Toshiba HDD and everythings been going great.

I used a HP 8GB thumb drive(purchased 8/'09, v125w) which says "high speed USB certified" but no numbers and when time shifting a program(recording it while playing a earlier part of it at the same time) I did get a jerky picture(I was recording a full bandwidth CBS channel at the time) I'll have to play more to see if lesser bandwidth channels play without the jerkiness. It's also possible my thumb drive is too slow, note when playing back the recording(and not recording at the same time) I saw no jerkiness, it was perfect. I'm using USB HDDs now and no such issues.

When pushing INFO on a 480i recording it says: 704x480p with a frame rate of 29.xx HZ, 720P channels say: 1280x720i with a frame rate of 59.xxx HZ and finally 1080i says: 1920x1080p and a frame rate of 29.xx HZ. Seems odd to me, isn't 480i channels 720x480i and why do the interlaced channels say p while the progressive channels say i......

Overall impression, man is this thing small and light! Smaller than my CM-7000 CECB, both have a metal case. It's quite amazing how simple this device is and what it can do and especially the price! I'd like it to be a bit more refined but again for the price it's just amazing. The picture quality from HDMI is equal to the source but it's up/down converter isn't as good as my TVs native, 480i looks a bit soft upconverted to 1080i while 720p has some interlace lines during scenes of movement upconverted to 1080i.

Odd things: Mine has a definite odd smell about it.......I'm sure it will go away but from unboxing it to playing it for the whole day it still has a smell......I'd say like smoked fish, I know it probably sounds weird but others in my household have commented the same thing......Smell is still there but only right next to unit....Smell went away shortly after above update.

Unit runs nice and cool ever after a full day playing with it.

I haven't figured out what "antenna power" on/off does.....it defaults to OFF and since I don't want to put any power back on my antenna line I've left it off. To me the most glaring issue is the lack of a . button. That will take a bit to get used to, in future days I'll have to try a USB HDD, I would think it should be self powered considering how small this thing and how small it's power supply must be....

Lastly, a real cool feature: when recording it tells you the bit rate it's recording at(by pushing INFO while recording). I don't quite understand the numbers thought but I can compare them to each other. For example:
My 480i channels average anywhere from .243Mb/S to .41Mb/S while 720p were 1.07Mb/S to 1.68Mb/S and 1080i were 1.52Mb/S to 2.16Mb/S for a full bandwidth CBS channel. Question, how do these numbers relate to a full bandwidth CBS channel being ~16MBPS? Isn't that what a full bandwidth channel should be

Still liking it, even with it's quirks, after about a week of playing with it. I believe videobruce will also note this in his OP but it does seem to have a bug for programs spanning midnight, you need to set the event to end at 23:59 and another to pick up at 00:00, if you don't you won't be able to set events after that one. Hopefully the midnight bug will be fixed in future updates???Midnight bug was fixed with a subsequent firmware update.

I'm basically liking my iView for what it is, a very inexpensive way to timeshift HD. I like to occasionally archive my recordings to a SD DVD recorder and the picture out of the iView's composite output is noticeably softer than the S-video out of my Tivo, which kind of sucks so if I think I might archive the program I really try and record it on my Tivo instead of the iView but of course the HD output on the iView is quite good but my DVD recorder only has SD inputs.
I'm OTA only and in that respect the tuner works fine, if I were on cable I'd probably not use the iView but others may have a higher threshold for quirks and be OK using their iView on cable, I'd read many of the following posts if you have cable to decide if you want to go that route.

Features;
Notable issues;
A. You can not watch a recording and record at the same time. I assume this is a hardware issue, but not certain,

To timeshift push PAUSE briefly while viewing your program this will start recording the buffer, you can scan or pause from there, note SKIP(which would be handy) doesn't seem to work in timeshift mode, also once you catch up to realtime(by searching) the iView stops recording and you lose the ability to search back, you must push pause to start the buffer again(stupid design, IMO once timeshift has started it should keep the buffer until STOP is pushed or you change the channel). Update to my above post, using my same thumb drive recording lesser bitrate stations(not a full bitrate CBS channel) I have no skipping, my guess is I need a faster thumb drive or a HDD that has a faster transfer rate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

F. The Guide can show 11 entries on a page. Problem is, no other pages are accessible. The page up/down has no effect,

Page up/down is for the program description if it's more than 1 page long, note see my above mention about lockups if you try and move around in the EPG before it's fully populated and I agree, you only get one page of programs, I've found no way to extend the list more than one page. Also is it just me or the the page up/down backwards? To move to the next page I'd expect to push the right button and left button to move back but it's opposite of that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

G. The default RF out is set to "Looping". You can't use this with a old school analog TV since the RF out is only a pass through. This will be changed.

I could see where this could be a issue, especially for anyone who only has a RF input TV.....No way to see the menus to turn it on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

Initial Setup:
...The Guide only lists one channel at a time in the entire screen. You scroll horizontally forward or back to change stations. There is room for 11 rows of text in the program list portion of the guide. Problem is, that is all you can get as of now. The page up & down do not respond. I don't know if 11 is all the DVR can show, or it's a lack of response from those buttons. The details box to the right does allow scrolling.

Thats what I've found, only one screen of 11 programs and again the page up/down only seems to be for program descriptions

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

There is no provision for a 'space' to be entered that I can find.

Same here no space key, I think it's because file names(at least years ago with DOS) could not have spaces?? I just used a comma. Also no period that I could find(which I also don't believe was allowed in DOS).

Quote:

Originally Posted by HoustonPerson

At that price, I wonder if it can act as a DVR third tuner when the 2 tuner TiVo is busy and the Sony is now dead (my previous short lived third tuner)?

Thats what I plan on doing, being OTA Tivo doesn't make a 4 tuner Tivo for me, only 2 tuners for us OTA people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HoustonPerson

One of the first requirements for me would be the HDMI out (native all resolutions) along with 5.1 DD sound.

No Native output and at first I thought no 5.1 from HDMI but changing Digital Audio to RAW HDMI On(default is PCM) I now get 5.1 from it's HDMI output(haven't tried the coax audio out). Note doing this also kind of disables the volume control for all HDMI output(it's fixed no matter how you set the control, only mute and 0 is different). It would be kind of a pain but if you weren't happy with the iView's scaling you could always just change the output resolution to match the program. The vast majority of my recordings are from 1080i channels so I'll probably just leave it at that and only change it if it starts to bug me on 720p or 480i recordings. For the cost of this thing I'd be willing to do a few work-a-rounds.

Update, the guide is quite buggy, I've had it lock up(for 30 seconds or more) or even reboot a couple times trying to move around in the EPG, I've never had such issues with any of my other TVs/CECBs that also rely on PSIP, it's this box not my market causing the problems. I'll probably not bother using the EPG feature on this box, other than to possibly schedule a recording(luckily I have a Tivo for a real guide when I need it).

In my experience, a small flash drive has a maximum write rate of 10 Mbps, which is about half the speed necessary to record a 1080i channel at full bandwidth. Perhaps other flash drives are faster, but it's likely that a USB HDD would be necessary to get full performance.

As for the bitrate display, it's important not to confuse megabits per second, megabytes per second, mebibits per second, and mebibytes per second, which should be displayed respectively as Mbps, MBps, Mibps, and MiBps, although most software doesn't differentiate between them. Numbers get skewed slightly depending on whether you define a kilobyte as 1000 bytes or 1024 bytes, and while bitrates traditionally use the former denomination, file sizes use the latter. The SI tried to eliminate the confusion by standardising the 1000-based units as kilo/mega/giga/tera and the 1024-based units as kibi/mebi/gibi/tebi, but the SI units never really caught on, so MB can mean either megabytes or mebibytes.

Fun fact: the TViX displays the size of in-progress recordings in gigabytes, but completed recordings' file sizes are displayed in gibibytes, thus making programs appear to "shrink" after they're done recording. The DVR displays the unit "GB" in both instances, thus adding to the potential confusion.

It wouldn't surprise me if this unit is using strange denominations for the bitrate display, thus yielding seemingly invalid bitrates. A 480i channel can use either 704x480 or 720x480, so there is nothing wrong in that area, although it does seem that the unit swaps the interlaced and progressive tags during playback.

Aleron Ives, what you said makes sense but according to Trip's RabbitEars site my local CBS channel is broadcasting it's video at 13.9-16.95 Mbps and audio at 384kbps. Those numbers just don't jive at all with what my iView is saying: 2.16 MB/S (although it looks like the iView is lacking the "p" so maybe thats the key).
AFA the p and i for recordings that I'm seeing when I push info when playing back a recording. For a 1080i channel recording it says exactly:
Scan Type: 1920x1080p
Frame_rate:29.976Hz

So I agree with you, sounds like they got the frame rate correct but the scan type in this case should be i.
Oh and about the resolution of 480i channels, Trip shows them as 704x480, maybe it's DVD thats 720x480.....I know thats what my newer DVD recorders record at, although older Panasonic DVD Recorders use to record at 704x480 so as you said, maybe they are interchangeable.

To timeshift push PAUSE briefly while viewing your program this will start recording the buffer, you can scan or pause from there, note SKIP(which would be handy) doesn't seem to work in timeshift mode, also once you catch up to realtime(by searching) the iView stops recording and you lose the ability to search back, you must push pause to start the buffer again(stupid design, IMO once timeshift has started it should keep the buffer until STOP is pushed or you change the channel).

Update to above, once you've caught up to realtime to get the buffer back you just need to quickly push PAUSE, then you can scan back to near the beginning of your buffer(I guess you'd say the pause key is the key to enabling you to use the timeshift mode). I say "near beginning" because if you go all the way to the beginning by searching sometimes things get weird and once I had it reboot and another time it took me to the end of my buffer where I had to scan back again(since skip doesn't work like it should(or rather like TIvo does which is to take you to the beginning of your buffer)).
I'll do more testing but with my local 720p bitstarved ABC channel with the default 1GB buffer I get about 16 mins. of buffer, I expect far less on my full bandwidth CBS channel.

Update: 9.5 minutes buffer on a full bandwidth CBS channel with the standard 1GB buffer. If I had a larger thumb drive or any USB HDD I'd probably make the buffer the max 4GBs to give me a nice sized 38-1hr + HD buffer and significantly larger SD buffer. Much nicer idea than TIvo which is basically a 1/2hr fixed buffer no matter the resolution and no way to increase it.

jjeff;
Thanks for the long post, you saved me some time since there was at least one item I forget to check and you confirmed others. Many of what you mentioned are in my list. I haven't tried the firmware I was sent yet.
I have the beta firmware id anyone wants to try it. I don't have the shipped version, so you can't revert back. The info screen shows V4, the new firmware shows V3.7z (if I read it correctly).

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Abundant OTA television is what makes this country different from all others. Lets keep it this way. If you like Wi-Fi so much, OTA fits right in. After all, it is wireless.

Do you have Cable TV? If so, have you or would you do a CATV scan and let me know if you have the same problem of only "0-0" showing for every channel as I do?

I no longer have access to a raw cable feed, at home I'm OTA only but at one of the medical buildings I manage I have access to a MDTA feed which has mostly digital channels converted to analog cable(which I assume the iView will not tune) and a limited number of clear QAM channels. I'll try and bring the iView to work just to see what I get.
For the price this box is really a wonder, I just can't believe they forgot the . key on the remote I mean we've needed that key since the digital transition.......I'm also beginning to really dislike the small, hard to read, illogically laid out remote. Not that I really expected more for something in this price range but personally I would have paid a good percentage more for a well thought out remote, but again hopefully Harmony will get the codes which would spur me on to finally getting one

Your points that have brought up;
No "." or "-" key for sub-channels, Buggy guide, Military time, No slow motion are all on my list,

What I didn't know yet;
Dead RF pass through if the unit is in standby. I was going to test this for signal level change, but haven't gotten around to it. It's a function I would not use,
No native output. Question, to me it seems resolution changes every time program or station changes seems a problem since the set has to keep switching back and forth. It seems to make more sense to have it fixed at one resolution. Comment anyone?
No resume. Huge issue with me.

I will update the comparison thread accordingly.

Regarding the volume control, I have only had it connected to a analog amp, I don't have any way to listen to HDMI audio. It's too bad the volume control has no effect for HDMI. Can I assume the same for coaxial? Sounds similar to the issue with the VRX.
I actually like the fact mid volume is 'average' volume level for the device. I can increase or decrease it to my needs. This is better than having 'full' be at the 'average' level where you can't increase it any more.

My statement about recording and playing back a recording referred to playback of a previously recorded program. You can't do both. I never use the timeshift option (great it actually is a option, unlike some of these other DVRs').

BTW, I assume "Antenna power" adds voltage for line powered devices as in preamps, but that wasn't even on my list to test yet.

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Abundant OTA television is what makes this country different from all others. Lets keep it this way. If you like Wi-Fi so much, OTA fits right in. After all, it is wireless.

...I used a HP 8GB thumb drive(purchased 8/'09, v125w) which says "high speed USB certified" but no numbers and when time shifting a program(recording it while playing a earlier part of it at the same time) I did get a jerky picture(I was recording a full bandwidth CBS channel at the time) I'll have to play more to see if lesser bandwidth channels play without the jerkiness. It's also possible my thumb drive is too slow, note when playing back the recording(and not recording at the same time) I saw no jerkiness, it was perfect.

Update to above, for what ever reason I'm getting far less skipping(or pauses) today with my thumb drive. I'm only really getting it when viewing a timeshifted "full bandwidth" channel, I'm not getting it at all with channels that have sub channels, so my guess is that with a newer higher quality thumb drive(or USB HDD) you should have no problems with skipping and again even with my thumb drive and a full bandwidth channel the recordings don't just skip, just the chase play that requires playing and recording at the same time.

No native output. Question, to me it seems resolution changes every time program or station changes seems a problem since the set has to keep switching back and forth. It seems to make more sense to have it fixed at one resolution. Comment anyone?

I somewhat agree and leave my Tivo to fixed 1080i for just that reason but true purists(and me if I want to get fussy) like to use native and let our TVs(or better yet external high quality scalers) do the converting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

No resume. Huge issue with me.

Not sure what you mean by no resume, on any partial titles when playing them back I'm given the option to resume or start from the beginning, like you resume is a major feature and I'm happy the iView has it

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

Regarding the volume control, I have only had it connected to a analog amp, I don't have any way to listen to HDMI audio. It's too bad the volume control has no effect for HDMI. Can I assume the same for coaxial? Sounds similar to the issue with the VRX.
I actually like the fact mid volume is 'average' volume level for the device. I can increase or decrease it to my needs. This is better than having 'full' be at the 'average' level where you can't increase it any more.

I kind of agree with you and wasn't saying "middle" was bad, rather just different than any other device I've used. Also note when set to RAW HDMI on (as mine will be) the volume control is basically disabled, only mute and 0(which equals mute) changes the volume from standard line output levels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

My statement about recording and playing back a recording referred to playback of a previously recorded program. You can't do both. I never use the timeshift option (great it actually is a option, unlike some of these other DVRs').

Sorry, I misunderstood you, I hadn't even played with trying to record something and play back a different title at the same time. I do this all the time with my Tivo and would surely miss it for my primary DVR but I guess for a backup DVR it's OK. Another annoyance I've encountered when recording is you have no access to EPG or even INFO. Last night I was timeshifting The 10 commandments on the iView and it just wasn't ending. I wanted to bring up the guide or somehow see how late it was scheduled but there was no way. I had to switch inputs to my Tivo and bring up it's guide to find out when it would end(4hrs 44 minutes long ). Minor inconvenience for a backup DVR but again something I'd miss if it were my only DVR.

Not sure what you mean by no resume, on any partial titles when playing them back I'm given the option to resume or start from the beginning, like you resume is a major feature and I'm happy the iView has it

Sorry, I took it as it didn't have the feature.

Quote:

Also note when set to RAW HDMI on (as mine will be) the volume control is basically disabled

Is it effective when set to PCM?
I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the lack of a setting a recording directly from the guide?

You have a PM.

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Abundant OTA television is what makes this country different from all others. Lets keep it this way. If you like Wi-Fi so much, OTA fits right in. After all, it is wireless.

Ok, here is the 3rd draft of the (may I say) Laundry list. (I told you I had a list

2. This needs to display the actual channel numbers on the display and in the favorites list as it is elsewhere! This is very confusing and not user friendly!
3. The display is too bright. You could never use this in a bedroom or any dark room. Fast fix, add a sheet of gray film or some color to reduce brightness and/or change the color to something other than red,
4. There needs to be a manual method to enter the correct time. Relying on stations time isn't always accurate. There is also a problem using the GMT offset which can be off by one hour.
5. The guide has a serious problem receiving PSIP data. When you switch back and forth between channels, the listings appear for the previous channel. If you enter the guide from a channel, the full listings appear. Switch to another station, the same problem, listing from that previous channel show, or limited entries for the new station will show.,
6. No ability to initiate a record entry directly in the Guide instead of entering it in separately. This defeats the purpose of the Guide. This is a huge disadvantage.
7. There is a limit of 11 program listings no matter how many the station is actually providing. Is this a hardware issue?
8. Switch to 12 hour clock format. Or provide a choice of both,
9. Rename “Hold” to “Schedule” and “Recall” to "Return” on the remote.
10. Rename "Program" to "Channel" in the menu. You are editing channels, not programs,
11. When scrolling through the recorded programs, eliminate the need to press “Ok” each time to activate playback of the next entry. Use 'Play' to play the recording in full screen,
12. Apparent serious issue with some CATV systems. All the channels are labeled "0-0". Also, 1/3 of the encrypted channels are not 'skipped',
13. Add a 'skip' function with adjustable times. Using FF & Rew to juimp past commercials is a linger process,
14. The info banner stays on screen to long. It's also too large. Reduce 10 sec. down to 4 sec or add adjustable timeout options.
15. There is no record indicator on the display. You can't tell if it is recording or not if the TV is not on.
16. Unable to schedule a program that spans midnight. Workaround is two recordings, one stopping at 2359, the next starting at 0001,
17. In schedule, remove the "Type" entry and combine channel number and call letters to one line,
18. When using the 'Manual search', confirmation to save when new channels are found and it returning back to the manual search screen after any entry is saved instead of closing out. It's a real annoyance to re-enter the screen again to add additional channels.
19. A conformation step is needed when using the 'Auto search' since it's easy to hit it by mistake and wipe out all your channels when you wanted to do a manual search,
20. The GoTo button duplicates what is already in the menu that needs a password. Remove the need for a password and use the button for something else.
21. Change the word “Book” in the manual record screen to Schedule and remove the “Book Info” since both do the same thing,
22. Remove the "View - Record" entry at the bottom of the manual record screen, or at least change the default to 'Record”. One less thing to click through,
23. Change the default HDMI audio to “Raw HDMI On”,
24. When in the menu, do not show the term “boot” on the display.
25. The RF loop through output is dead if the DVR is in standby,
26. These four choices for sorting the channels do not have any affect on channel order. Also, their labels are mostly unknown here. Since the ability to move individual channels is already there (a huge plus), remove this function,
27. Change “Movie” in USB mode to “Recordings”. These aren't always movies that are recorded.
28. Volume & mute have no effect on the HDMI output when in Raw mode (for 5.1 audio),
29. There is no slow motion function,
30. Remove “Radio” channels. This doesn't always see audio channels as “Radio”, placing many under the normal video. This just makes things more complicated and confusing,
31. Change time zone names of cities to 'standard time” designations: EST, CST etc.
32. There is no 'space' entry when editing the program names to separate words,
33. Remove the “TV Format” entry in the menu since there is no “PAL” format in N. America
34. These “colored keys” that are mentioned on page 14, where are they on the remote?
35. What is this “service mode” that is mentioned in the manual?
36. There is no mention of the term “ATSC” in any of your literature or in the on line manual. References to “DVB-T” should be removed,
37. Revise the features on page 3; change DVB-T FTA to ATSC OTA, remove that incorrect “400 channel capacity”, change 570i & p to 480i & p.
38. Revise the specs on page 18; change frequency range to 57-803 MHz, bandwidth to 6 MHz, add "ATSC" to demodulation and remove “DVB-T”.
39. During recording, when you click on 'Info', there are two entries that should be removed; “Max record size” which seems to be a duplicate of “Disk free space” and “Cur play size” which always shoes “0KB”,
40. Is that above pop up suppose to display during playback? If so, it doesn't.

removed the first item which was hardware related

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Abundant OTA television is what makes this country different from all others. Lets keep it this way. If you like Wi-Fi so much, OTA fits right in. After all, it is wireless.

3. A conformation step is needed when using the 'Auto search' since it's easy to hit it by mistake and wipe out all your channels when you anted to do a manual search,

Agreed, I've accidentally done this several times

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

5. No ability to initiate a record entry directly in the Guide instead of entering it in manually. This defeats the purpose of the Guide. This is a huge disadvantage.

Agreed, everyone wants a grid with a simple click to record, this is more like a VCR or DVD recorder where you program start/stop and channel numbers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

7. There is a limit of 11 program listings no matter how many the station is actually providing. Is this a hardware issue?

Agreed, this is odd, and the manual even mentions up to 7 days EPG(page 13 of my manual).

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

8. It appears the guide has a problem receiving PSIP data. When you switch back and forth between channels, many times only a few listings appear. When you move up or down, the rest of the listings appear for a brief time before it displays listings for that next channel,

Yes I can see many people returning this product because of the odd actions with the EPG, the way it works now I prefer to not use it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

9. There needs to be a manual method to enter the correct time. Relying on stations time isn't always accurate. There is a problem using the GMT offset which is off by one hour.

I've also had it change by itself to ET(called NY) even though I live in CT(called Houston). I know I set it to HOU, I don't know why but twice I've found it in NY!

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

12. The info banner stays on screen to long. It's also too large Reduce 10 sec. to 4 sec. Add some adjustable time options.

Agreed but to get rid of it right away you can always just push EXIT.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

13. There is no record indicator on the display. You can't tell if it is recording or not if the TV is not on.

Agreed although with my thumb drive I can see it's light flashing when it's recording, so thats my clue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

14. When in the menu, do not use the term “boot” on the display.

Agreed, what the heck does 'boot" have to do with main menu??? I could see root but NOT boot

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

15. Remove the need for a password in the program menu. This is really unnecessary.

Totally agree, I never use PWs for my players, just no need for it IMO, one more thing to go wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

17. The RF loop through output is dead if the box in in standby,

To be technical it's not really "dead" but for many I'd say it's ~15db of attenuation when off is in effect dead. I also will not use pass thru in the future but currently I just have it hooked between the cable that runs to my main 4 way splitter that feeds most of my components. When the box is OFF I get nothing to my Tivo, DVD recorders or TV.....I found this issue out the hard way when I missed a Tivo recording yesterday when I had the iView turned off, it hasn't been turned off since then

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

22. Volume & mute have no effect on the HDMI output,.

Sorry if I confused you on this, when set to the default of PCM the volume does indeed control the HDMI output, only when set to RAW HDMI on(which turns on 5.1 output) does the volume control get disabled for HDMI(as I believe it should in this case).

Quote:

Originally Posted by videobruce

23. Rename “Radio” to “Audio” channels. This is a term carried over from satellite receivers.

I have a couple OTA audio only channels but neither show up as "radio" they both show up as just another video sub channel but the screen does say something about "no video" on those audio only channels. I wonder why my audio only channels aren't showing up as radio channels.......My Sony TV displays "audio only" for those same audio channels.

I think you and I must have vastly different manuals.....I have nothing like you said on page 18 of the printed manual......are you talking about the printed or some online manual? I see no revision number on the back of my manual or we could compare it...Maybe my manual is newer and has already been corrected on a few points?

only when set to RAW HDMI on(which turns on 5.1 output) does the volume control get disabled for HDMI(as I believe it should in this case).

Ok. Since it is "raw" it is a unprocessed signal that can't be altered. Now that makes sense.

Quote:

I think you and I must have vastly different manuals.....I have nothing like you said on page 18 of the printed manual......are you talking about the printed or some online manual? I see no revision number on the back of my manual or we could compare it...Maybe my manual is newer and has already been corrected on a few points?

I have the pdf version from their site. I never even bothered looking at the leaflet that was in the box.

I updated posts 3 & 4.

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Abundant OTA television is what makes this country different from all others. Lets keep it this way. If you like Wi-Fi so much, OTA fits right in. After all, it is wireless.

AFA the p and i for recordings that I'm seeing when I push info when playing back a recording. For a 1080i channel recording it says exactly:
Scan Type: 1920x1080p
Frame_rate:29.976Hz

So I agree with you, sounds like they got the frame rate correct but the scan type in this case should be i.
Oh and about the resolution of 480i channels, Trip shows them as 704x480, maybe it's DVD thats 720x480.....I know thats what my newer DVD recorders record at, although older Panasonic DVD Recorders use to record at 704x480 so as you said, maybe they are interchangeable.

Technically, the framerate display is also wrong. It should be 29.970. Film rate is 24.976. 720x480 and 704x480 are both valid in ATSC and DVD-Video, but DVDs require the use of 720x480 to do anamorphic widescreen.

I tried the new firmware and the only changes that I found were changing the default RF out to ch 3 and the reversal of the red & green LED's on the front panel. When off the green "Lock" is lit, when on the dim red "Power is lit.

Among other things, I inquired what those unusual terms meant for sorting the channel order. Changing the choice made no difference though. The reply is here;